When the US businessman Malcolm Glazer took over Manchester United football club in 2005, concerns focused on the differences between Glazer and other foreigners who had bought into the British game. Unlike most, he was not a fan looking to indulge his ego with massive spending on a personal fantasy team. Instead, Glazer, who has died aged 85, approached the Premier League club in the same way he had most of his investments, identifying good value and using a strategy designed to maximise his return, whether his takeover were successful or not.

Glazer's fortune was built on a lifetime of such investments. The son of Lithuanian immigrants, he was born in Rochester, New York state, where his father ran a watch-parts business. The fifth of seven children, Malcolm was 15 when his father died, and sold watches door to door to help support his family.

By the time he was 21, he had a profitable franchise repairing watches at a military base and began investing in trailer parks and nursing homes. He created a holding company, First Allied Corporation, to diversify further, and became adept at using takeover strategies to enrich his business.

In 1984, First Allied made an unsuccessful $7.6bn offer for the then bankrupt railway company Conrail, using only $100m of its own cash. The purchase would be financed from Conrail's future profits, which, after government deregulation, turned out to be substantial. Attempts to take over Formica in 1988 and Harley-Davidson in 1989 also failed, but in each case the value of the stock increased and Glazer made substantial profits.

In 1994, Glazer and his son Avram took control of Zapata, an oil company set up in 1954 by the future US president George HW Bush and sold by him in the mid-60s. Then they got out of the oil business, buying supermarkets in the Caribbean, and later concentrating on a fishery subsidiary called Omega Protein. In 1998, Zapata set up Zap.com, which made a takeover bid for the internet portal Excite; again, the bid failed but the Glazers profited from the rise in the price of stock they held.

Moving into the world of American sport, Glazer exhibited the same strategies. He bought the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995, paying a then record sum of $192m, even though the Bucs were a dismal team. To help finance the purchase, First Allied attempted to sell the Houlihan's restaurant chain, which it controlled, at a bargain price to Zapata, which it owned outright. This would have netted First Allied nearly $60m in profit but, after an uproar, shareholders in Houlihan's turned the sale down.

By threatening to relocate the Bucs, Glazer got the city of Tampa to fund a new football stadium and give the team a lease that featured low rent and virtually all ancillary income from the facility. On the field, a new coach, Tony Dungy, led the team to the NFL playoffs by 1997. Dungy failed to get them all the way to the Super Bowl final, so at the start of 2002 the Bucs fired him.

The Glazers eventually hired Jon Gruden, who was then under contract to the Oakland Raiders. They had to compensate Oakland but it was worth it, as Gruden immediately took the Bucs to the Super Bowl final of the 2002 season, held in January 2003 – against Oakland. The California team's signals indicating attacking moves had not been changed with the change of coach, so Gruden and the Bucs' defence often knew exactly what Oakland were about to do before they did it. The Bucs crushed the Raiders to win their first Super Bowl.

Later in 2003, the Glazers began buying shares in Manchester United, seeing an undervalued and underexploited international brand in an industry that was relatively recession-proof. Again, their strategy was aimed at minimising their exposure and raising the value of their investment in the club, to ensure profit even if the takeover failed.

As they began buying United shares, the share prices of Zapata and Omega rose on the strength of rumoured takeover bids, which critics claimed had been orchestrated by the Glazers to raise more cash. Eventually, the Glazers took over United at a cost of about £800m, but acquiring almost £575m of debt.

Glazer suffered a series of strokes in 2006, and was not often seen in public thereafter; the club was overseen by his sons Joel, Bryan and Avram. The sale in 2012 of 10% of the club's shares in New York led to the whole being valued at around £1.5bn. In 2010, Forbes estimated Glazer's net worth, from a wide range of business interests, at $2.4bn.

He is survived by his wife, Linda, five sons (the other two being Edward and Kevin), and a daughter, Darcie, all of whom are involved in the family's companies.Michael Carlson

Gavin McOwan writes: Malcolm Glazer was the most ruthless of the group of foreign owners who bought into the Premier League, effectively using Manchester United's own money to buy itself, so that vast amounts drained away in interest, fees and charges. Of the £140m raised in the 2012 flotation, only half was banked by United. The other £70m was pocketed by the owners.

United fans despised Glazer for saddling one of the world's most successful and financially stable sports clubs with debt. A breakaway club, FC United of Manchester, was formed by disillusioned supporters, a Love United Hate Glazer campaign sprang up in the city, and a group of wealthy supporters, the Red Knights, attempted unsuccessfully to buy back the club.

Yet the rebellion simmering among the club's supporters never quite boiled over into a full-blown fans' revolution, largely because the team continued to thrive on the pitch, winning four Premiership titles in seven years, reaching three European Cup finals, winning one, and so remaining – for the time being – England's pre-eminent club.

Crucially, Sir Alex Ferguson, the club's driving force and manager for more than a quarter of a century, remained loyal to the Glazers until stepping down in 2013.

Last season, United's season was so poor under David Moyes, the manager chosen by Ferguson to succeed him, that their fans barely took stock of the club's off-field politics. But United began to be eclipsed by their rivals Manchester City, who have beaten them to the Premier League title twice in the past three seasons, and possess a stronger playing squad and far greater financial muscle. Unless success returns to Old Trafford next season, there will be new financial pressures on the structure that Glazer established.

•Malcolm Irving Glazer, businessman and sports entrepreneur, born 15 August 1928; died 28 May 2014